Church Of St Mary Magdalene

The Church of St Mary Magdalene, Enfield

This church was built between 1881 and 1883 to designs by the renowned architect William Butterfield. It was commissioned by Georgiana Hannah Twells, widow of the banker and Member of Parliament Philip Twells, as a memorial to her husband. The foundation stone was laid on 17 December 1881 and the church was consecrated by the Bishop of London, Bishop Jackson, on 18 July 1883.

The building is constructed of rock-faced coursed Kentish ragstone with Bath stone dressings and has red clay tile roofs. It comprises a nave, chancel, north and south aisles, south porch, north and south transepts, a south chapel (added in 1907-8 as the Lady Chapel), north vestry and organ chamber.

The most striking external feature is the spire, a dramatic tall pyramid with horizontal banding and one tier of lucarnes. The tower is four stages high with angle buttresses to the first stage and a half, then turning to clasping buttresses which rise to the base of the spire. A square southeast stair turret rises to halfway up the third stage. The west window is a three-light opening, while the belfry windows comprise paired two-light openings to the west and east and two-light openings to the north and south, all with conventional Geometrical tracery featuring a cusped circle in the head. This form is repeated in the other ground floor windows. The clerestory has cusped Y-tracery openings. The south porch has a moulded arched entrance with one order of shafting and displays chequerwork in the gable. Chequerwork also appears in the chancel gable. A chapel under its own gable stands to the southeast. Low transepts project from the west parts of the chancel, with the north transept having a hipped roof. The style of the building derives from 14th-century Gothic and has been described as unremarkable save for its distinctive spire.

The interior walls are plastered and whitened except for the richly decorated chancel. The nave has three wide arches to the aisles and a narrow arch at the west corresponding with the entrance alleyway from the south porch. The arches are double-chamfered, with round piers of red sandstone featuring moulded circular capitals. The chancel arch has an outer moulding with the inner order springing from a colonette rising from a fluted corbel. Similar arches open to the transepts. The nave has a canted roof with embattled tie-beams. The chancel has a six-sided canted ceiling divided into rectangular panels by ribs. The aisle roofs are lean-tos.

Butterfield's original work includes the reredos, which is architectural rather than figurative with a central feature silhouetted against the east window and square corner pinnacles. The triple sedilia feature unusually movable wooden stools for seats rather than fixed stone benches, with large quatrefoiled roundels set in the valleys between the arches. The stalls are also Butterfield's work with traceried fronts pierced with quatrefoils. At the west end stands a fine font characteristic of Butterfield's style, with an octagonal marble bowl with sides featuring gabled trefoiled arches carried on dark marble shafts and a central octagonal drum. The wooden polygonal pulpit of two tiers on a stone base has pierced tracery and is also by Butterfield. Throughout the nave and aisles, bench seating is low with rounded shoulders, a type much favoured by Butterfield. The chancel floor is laid with Minton's encaustic tiles and multi-coloured tiles floor the nave and aisle alleyways, while red tiles line the lower part of the aisle walls.

The chancel underwent significant embellishment between 1897 and 1899 by Charles Buckeridge, Edward Turner and N H J Westlake. The ceiling over the choir was decorated in 1898 to designs by Edward Turner of Leicester, brother of the then vicar, the Reverend George Turner. The paintings of angels holding emblems of the Passion on the sanctuary ceiling are the work of Charles Buckeridge, as are the designs for the paintings on the east wall depicting the Magi and Shepherds. The marble facing around the sanctuary is also Turner's work. A wooden chancel screen of 1898 has been moved to the west end where it screens off the north-south alleyway. The church contains extensive stained glass by Heaton, Butler and Bayne.

This represents a late work from Butterfield's career. By about 1890 he had effectively retired, which explains why the chancel enrichment was undertaken by others. The building lacks the fire and inspiration characteristic of his work from the 1840s to 1860s, the period which helped establish High Victorian Gothic, but has been considerably enhanced by the lavish embellishments of the 1890s.

A former parsonage to the north, also by Butterfield and dating to 1882, is listed separately.